Trusting Without Borders

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Sunday at church we sang Oceans by Hillsong and I’ve heard this song at least a dozen times on the radio but after the past two weeks, I was consumed with guilt and knew The Lord was speaking directly to me. I felt so convicted that I was overcome with emotion and couldn’t help the tears forming in my eyes and rolling down my face.

So let me explain…

Two weeks ago, I was finishing sealing the last 40 of our support letters when I got a call from Cory and the first thing he says is “we’ve got a problem.”

A million things rushed through my head but I was not expecting what came out of his mouth. He proceeds to tell me that due to some miscommunication our trip to Rwanda in July has been double booked with another group and they’d already purchased their plane tickets pushing us out of our scheduled time.

In order for our whole group to go, we had to go in July but RCRI was already booked for the whole month. So we were at a crossroad to figure out if we wanted to push the trip back to September {and lose some of our team} or start over and plan another trip in the next three months.

After hanging up the phone, I felt defeated and sick to my stomach and honestly, a little pissed. Cory had lived and breathed this trip since December and now we we’re back to square one. How is that fair? Why are we the ones who are having to sacrifice? I had waited a whole year to go to Africa and now I wasn’t going to be able to go.

We spent the rest of the week talking to our team, my parents and Joel and Sandra (our pastors), we contacted a few other missionaries, contacted RCRI and did a lot of praying and discussing different scenarios. It became very apparent that if we wanted to lead a group on a foreign trip, we simply didn’t have enough time to start over with a new destination and still go in July. Plus, we love RCRI and what they are doing for the children of Rwanda and we wanted to continue to support them. As much as it hurts to leave some of our group home, we feel like God is telling us to go in September.

The majority of this post has been sitting in my drafts for almost two weeks and I’ve been waiting for the right time to post {mostly because we didn’t have any definite answers} but after hearing that song on Sunday I knew it was time.

You see, what makes this whole situation even worse is I knew I had the completely wrong attitude about it. I wanted to write a post that Friday but I couldn’t even wrap my head around the news we had gotten to think of anything else. I knew I had to take a step back because if I were to write a post it would have been cynical and full of disappointment and bitterness. I NEVER want to look back at this journey and have negative thoughts about it because I understand that changes like this are to be expected in international missions and I honestly believe God is using this to work on me.

I’m a planner. An organizer. I like for things to go just like I have them written down in my life planner and one thing I struggle with is flexibility.  I have no doubt that this experience will make me a better missionary because flexibility is a must with missionaries. This all may be bad timing for myself and the people I want to go with but it’s always perfectly in God’s time. He knows what He’s doing {even if that means I have to let go of the control and change my plans}.

Every word in that song spoke to me but the line that stood out the most is “trust without borders” and I knew that I’ve haven’t been. This whole time I was upset that I wasn’t going to get to go with some of the people I wanted to go with and it wasn’t working out for time I wanted to go. How is that trusting, let alone trusting without borders? I was selfish and it could have ruined this whole experience for not only me but our whole group. If nothing else, I believe this setback was to teach me to be more flexible and rely on my faith that the Lord has everything under control.

How much do we miss because we aren’t trusting The Lord and letting him lead us? How much more can we do in Rwanda in September rather than July with a group half the size? What does the Lord have planned for us in July that will impact someones life more than being in Rwanda? As much as I wish I knew all the answers, I will as the song says let the “Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders” because in the end I know he will “take me deeper than my feet could ever wander and my faith will be made stronger in the presence of my Saviour”.

For more information on our trip to Rwanda, check out my sweet husbands post on Barnabasx.org.